iOS & Android Shatter Records on Christmas Day — Historically, more iOS and Android apps are downloaded on Christmas than on any other day of the year. This is due to a massive influx of smartphones and tablets given as gifts. As fast as loved-ones can unwrap their shiny, new Galaxy IIs …

3.7 million Android devices activated over Christmas weekend — Andy Rubin continues to use his Twitter account as the broadcasting platform for Android's latest statistical achievements. This time, he's letting us know that a magnificent 3.7 million new Android devices were activated over the holiday weekend.

Google+ Growth Accelerating. Passes 62 million users. Adding 625,000 new users per day. Prediction: 400 million users by end of 2012. — Google+ Growth Accelerating. Passes 62 million users. Adding 625,000 new users per day. Prediction: 400 million users by end of 2012.

Mocked And Misunderstood — When people ask me, “how do you know which companies and services are going to be the biggest successes?”, I usually tell them to look for the companies and services that are mocked and misunderstood. For some reason, that correlates highly with the biggest breakout successes.

Windows Phone Marketplace passes 50,000 apps — The Windows Phone Marketplace has now passed the 50,000 app and games submission mark. Content is being added at the rate of 265 items per day. At the time of writing, 50,126 items have been published. Of these, 17,276 were added …

Why Berlin is poised to be Europe's new tech hub — After the visual opulence of Paris, Berlin feels almost dowdy. Drab and dark, the city hardly comes across as one of the great capitals of the world. A city's importance on a global stage is measured typically by the size and scope of its airport …

Dropbox Adds Auto-Import From Your Camera — DropBox is getting into the Photo Stream game in a new experimental beta — Dropbox is trying out a neat new feature that will give it magical Photo Stream-like abilities. Everybody's favorite cloud-storage app has added photo and video import.

YouTube Slam pits viral videos against each other — Google is attempting to remedy the dispute between which viral videos are the most entertaining with a new experiment called YouTube Slam. — According to the YouTube official blog, YouTube Slam is a video discovery experiment it created in partnership with Google Research.

Intel's 32nm Medfield SoC specs and benchmarks leak — Intel's Medfield may still be a ways from breaking into the smartphone and tablet market, but we're finally starting to get some concrete details on its specs and capabilities. VR-Zone got the bitty gritty on Chipzilla's first true SoC …

Should Startups Focus on Profitability or Not? — There are certain topics that even some of the best journalists can't fully grok. One of them is profitability. — I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) …

Amazon.com quietly acquires the social shopping whizzes at Quorus — A few weeks ago, we reported that Quorus co-founder Logan Bowers had left the upstart to become a senior software engineer at Amazon.com. Well, as it turns out, the former Zillow and Expedia developer will have some familiar faces hanging around the Amazon offices.

China's Parallel Online Universe — To the casual eye, China's social media landscape might look diverse and lively. But the social media clones are careful to follow Communist Party censorship. — As the showdown escalated between Chinese security forces and residents of Wukan …

Tech Podcasts from Every Angle — TWiT.tv covers the latest in news, privacy, hacking, security, plus reviews of smartphones, laptops, tablets, and wearables. If it has a chip, Leo Laporte and friends have a podcast on it.

PSD2 Compliance in Zoho Books — The Revised Payment Services Directive, also known as the PSD2, is a set of regulatory guidelines laid down by the European Union (EU) for finance, banking, and payment service companies.

Google Fi - a phone plan, by Google — We felt that most phone plans just weren't made with you in mind. So that's why we built Google Fi with features that real people actually want. Click to learn more.